31/03/2016

5 THINGS I'VE LEARNT ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA.

Hey Zengarmy,
When I first created my Facebook account back in 2009,(that was 7 years ago. Yes, I am THAT OLD! Do not judge!)it was an exciting experience where people can just sharewhatever the shit they wanted to share without being judged.However, with more and more social media mushrooming inthe recent years, I quickly realized that social media etiquettediffers from platform to platform. You can post the exact samepost on both Facebook & Twitter and literally get 2 completelydifferent reactions to one post! Have you guys ever experiencedsomething similar before? Or is it just me? I'm sure I'm not theonly one who underwent this kind of experience in the past!Anyways, today I'm going to quickly share with you guys5 things that I've learnt about social media, after almost onedecade of being on most of the social media available out there.

1) It is constantly changing& will never stay the sameIf you think you can get away with using the same hashtags on Instagramfor over a year and still get the same amount of exposure on your account,maybe you should start to realize that trends come and go. So do hashtags!I used to think that how hard could running an Instagram account be?But the key point with running any social media account is to keep upwith the current trend ALL OF THE TIME in order to STAY RELEVANT,& that, my friend, ain't an easy task to do. It's time & effort consuming!On the side note, social media developers, with their initial intention ofearning money from both the users & the advertisers, are constantly tryingto come up with more and more seemingly-user-friendly-but-actually-nottricks in order to, you know, GET THAT MONEY. If you didn't know, I run a pageon Facebook called 经典心理学 (meaning Classical Psychology) where I postmandarin-based quotes. It's gotten approximately 19K followers in the past 5years (I can't remember exactly when I started, lol!), which is quite remarkableconsidering I didn't even spend a single cent on promoting it. However, to myconcern, the average likes on each of the post on that page is only about 200,which, if you calculate it, is ONLY ABOUT 1.05% OF MY ENTIRE FOLLOWING.Did something went wrong? I have no idea. But my current hypothesis is thatFacebook deliberately lowered the exposure of my posts to the users whomare ALREADY FOLLOWING MY PAGE, in order to make me pay for promotingmy page. I'm not exactly confident with this hypothesis but if it's the truth:Nice try, Fakebook.

2) Engagement > No. of followersI used to think that the more the amount of followers you have,the more likes & comments you'll get, but that's completely wrong!If you are an advertiser who wants to collaborate with influencialsocial media accounts, would you pick an account who has 10Kfollowers with only an average of 500 likes on every post? ORwould you pick an account with 1K followers and an average of800 likes on every post? If it was in my case, I would definitelygo with the account with 1K followers because it shows moreaffection and connection between the followers and the account.The 10K account, if you ask me? He/She probably bought all thefollowers from some cheap online sites who don't even bother toleave a like or a comment, let alone engaging with the account.Some say when your number of followers is huge, even if it's fake,it will attract other real-in-life accounts to follow your account.That may be true in the old days when Instagram isn't under Facebook,but in the most recent Instagram update, Instagram announced on theirblog that they intend to alter the algorithm of the users' feed according topopularity ("measured" by the amount of likes & comments, not followers)instead of the timing when you post the photo. In simpler words, this meansthat if somebody posted a photo with 100 likes and 5 comments while yoursonly gotten 30 likes and 1 comment, even if you both posted simultaneously,that somebody's photo will show up in your friends' Instagram feed earlierthan your photo. How does this benefit Instagram? You ask. Well, thinkingfrom another point of view, after this kind of system is being applied,users who are making a living out of Instagram will naturally be worriedand will demand a greater exposure to their contents. This, my friend,is when Instagram kicks in and ask the users to pay money in order topromote their content in order to show up first in the Instagram feed.That said, all of these could be avoided if you have more engagements,instead of plenty of followers who will just scroll through your photos.

3) Some people will be jealouswhen you've achieved something(well, some, but not all)You may not have experienced this before, but in my case,when I announced something, for example my music video,my rate of unfollowers will straight up hit the roof once Iposted the announcement on Instagram. I'm pretty sure IDID NOT use any sensitive or annoying words and henceI shall explain this phenomenon as some people seeingme achieving a milestone that they didn't achieve andthey ended up feeling jealous and decided to hit thatunfollow button. This is pretty self-explanatory, I guess.

4) You reap what you sow.

When you do something out of a specific motive,for example following other accounts and expecting themto follow back your account, DO NOT expect them to beyour loyal followers who will like and comment on yourphotos. THEY WILL NOT. Let me be honest. When youtreat people like an option, they treat you like a choice.

5) When in doubt, watch tutorialsHere's a tutorial that I think is quite useful for both beginners and veteran :

That's all for now! Sorry if you find this blog post too short.I decided to keep it short and sweet as I didn't want it to be boring heheh!Anyhow, I hope this blog post AT LEAST gave you some inspiration & help.Leave a comment if you have any doubts, and I'll see you in my next one!♥